By Anne D'Innocenzio
Walmart workers who once unloaded trucks now have a chance to drive them.
The nation's largest retailer has launched a training program that gives employees who work in its distribution or fulfillment centers a chance to become certified Walmart truck drivers through a 12-week program taught by the company's established drivers.
Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, also said it is raising pay for its 12,000 truck drivers. The starting range for new drivers will now between $95,000 and $110,000, according to Walmart spokeswoman Anne Hatfield. The retailer said that $87,500 had been the average that new truck drivers could make in their first year.
The moves announced Thursday come as the pandemic has made trucker shortages more severe as demand to move freight reaches historic highs. The American Trucking Associations, a large industry trade group, estimates that the nation is short about 80,000 drivers.
Walmart said about 20 workers in Dallas and Dover, Delaware, have earned their commercial driver’s licenses. About 400 to 800 workers in the company's supply-chain network are expected to complete the truck-driving program this year, Hatfield said.
The Bank of America Institute found that average monthly rent payment growth for the bank's small business clients rose 12% year-on-year.
A driverless ride-hailing car in China hit a pedestrian, but people on social media are taking the carmaker’s side in an AI vs. humans debate.
The Federal Reserve faces a cooling job market as well as persistently high prices, Chair Jerome Powell said in a possible sign of looming rate cuts.
America’s oldest flour company, King Arthur Baking Co., saw a six-fold increase in demand during the pandemic, and baking interest continues to rise.
The surgeon general has said there's a loneliness epidemic in America. For many people, that includes a lack of friendships at work. But there's hope!
The housing market shows few signs of busting out of its three-year funk after a disappointing spring season and amid a gloomy outlook for the summer and f
The entertainment giant Paramount will merge with Skydance, closing out a decades-long run by the Redstone family in Hollywood and injecting cash.
For 30 years Ira Galtman’s job has been to document how American Express went from an express stagecoach company in New York in 1850, to what it is today.
Air travel got more miserable last year, if the number of consumer complaints filed with the U.S. government is any measure.
U.S. ticked toward more records Friday after a highly anticipated report on the job market bolstered Wall Street’s hopes for interest rate cuts.
